JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING – MAYA FRODEMAN GALLERY is pleased to present Confluence and Caldera, a solo exhibition introducing two new series of aerial photographs by Tuck Fauntleroy. These works will remain on view at the gallery's downtown location in Jackson Hole from June 13th through July 27th, 2025. An artist reception will be held Friday, June 13th from 5 to 7pm. The artist will be in attendance. All are welcome.
Together, Confluence and Caldera probe the sparse visual aesthetic that has developed into Tuck Fauntleroy’s signature style of photography. To his eye, the unique landscapes of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and Grand Teton National Park are presented in forms more recognizable as postwar American abstraction than landscape photography. Bold black liquid splashes across the white canvas of an ice-covered lake; the otherworldly blues, golds and ochre found only in the geothermal pools of the Yellowstone Caldera appear as though dripped directly from a paintbrush. Fauntleroy frames our natural world in his aesthetic language, a dialect perhaps descended directly from Motherwell, Frankenthaler, Kline, and Pollock, but entirely his own.
That these are photographs, not paintings, is entirely the point. Fauntleroy looks to the natural world to draw the lines. From his unique perspective, he communicates a moment with intuitive artistry that parallels the intrinsic beauty of his subject matter.
Confluence continues Fauntleroy’s formal exploration of the visual language of water, expanding upon themes first introduced in his 2018 debut series, Waterline. Rendered in black and white, the images trace the meeting of river and lake—fluid pathways converging in striking, graphic compositions. Deep tonal contrasts and bold ribbons of water cut through fractured ice, following the winding channels of a landscape shaped by time and movement. Through this visual interplay of texture, flow, and form, Confluence meditates on the quiet drama of nature’s transitions, offering a study in rhythm, space, and the enduring presence of water.
Each frame incorporates a meticulous months-long planned approach, carefully timed to capture water as it carves a springtime channel into the frozen lake. Fauntleroy works in tandem with a skilled pilot, often hanging out of the window of a single-engine airplane while it swoops for every planned shot. Timing, seasonality, and tracking the notoriously mercurial temperature of the Wyoming springtime is paramount to each successful image.
Caldera presents the artist’s first focused study of the extreme geothermal landscape of Yellowstone National Park. For Fauntleroy, honoring the geologic and scientific singularity of the Yellowstone Caldera felt like an eventuality within his practice, but one he had to approach in the right way. The first national park in the world, Yellowstone comprises over 2 million acres, the largest nearly untouched ecosystem in the earth’s northern temperate zone. It’s also an active super volcano, with roughly half of the world’s active geysers.
Geologist Ferdinand Hayden led the first scientific exploration of Yellowstone Park in 1871, writing of the geothermal landscape, “Nothing ever conceived by human art could equal the peculiar wildness and delicacy of color of these remarkable prismatic springs. Life becomes a privilege and a blessing after one has seen and thoroughly felt these incomparable types of nature’s cunning skill.” Following in the tradition of Albert Bierstadt and Ansel Adams, Fauntleroy turns his lens on the park’s thermal basins, creating abstract compositions using the otherworldly colors of these microbial springs as they are; nature’s paintbrush.
Through his work, Fauntleroy expresses a profoundly human desire to capture and chase the ephemerality of seasons and time. His keen sense of composition and scrupulous play between negative and positive space tends to challenge our perception of our environs, hovering between the recognizable and the sublime.
Tuck Fauntleroy grew up in a small waterfront town on the eastern shore of Maryland. He graduated with a B.A. from Bucknell University in 2000 and moved west to Jackson, Wyoming. Combined with his personal photographic practice, Fauntleroy developed a professional foundation as a photographer in the fields of architecture and interior design over the past 20 years. Published in recognized outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, Dwell, Conde Nast Traveler, and Town & Country, Fauntleroy’s fine arts photography is committed to utilizing the aesthetics of the natural world. Past series include Waterline (2018), Snake River (2019), Elements (2020), Winter Stock (2020) and Burn (2022). Tuck Fauntleroy lives and works in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
